Many Romantic period literature was heavily influenced by images of nature and strong emotions. John Keats’ and Percy Bysshe Shelley’s works are examples of this. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem, “Ode to the West Wind,” was published 1820. John Keats’ poem, “To Autumn,” is a collection of elaborate and emotionally charged images about the fall that centers around the use the “apostrophe.” The similarities between these poems are vastly outweighed by the differences. “Ode the West Wind” is a lighter poem than “To Autumn” but they have a different tone. Keats celebrates autumn’s arrival, framing it with thoughts of prosperity and life, while Shelley mourns its end, viewing fall as the bitter end of spring. These poems both describe fall or some aspects thereof.
Shelley’s poem “Ode to the West Wind” was addressed to a wind in the opening line. (Line 1) The tone of the poem is dark and negative from the beginning to the end. The speaker starts the poem by comparing death and fall. This sets the scene for the dark, morbid tone that pervades the entire poem. The title of the poem refers to the wind. It is “from whose unseen appearance the leaves die are driven, as ghosts fleeing an enchanter”. Lines 2 and 3. The image of ghosts running conveys a chilling sense of darkness and is accompanied by the direct reference to fall. The poem’s image of ghostly, dead leaves is a tangible representation of the abstract idea of fall, which it insists on portraying through the lense of sadness and death. Even the most optimistic comment the speaker makes on autumn is inherently negative. Lines 60-61 refer to “a deep autumnal tonality sweetened by sadness”, which one can easily assume is a deeply mournful sadness. As the poem continues, the theme of “Ode to the West Wind” becomes more morbid. He does not use death’s image to signify an end. Instead, he uses it as a symbol that he then expands on by describing sickness. In lines 4-5, he describes the “yellows, and blacks, and pale, but not too hectic, / Pestilence stricken multitudes”. The references to pestilence, the frenzied red of tuberculosis-induced flu and other illnesses contribute to the idea of fall as a form or death. These lines as well as the “dirge / Of death year” reference to autumn wind (lines 23-24), are what go beyond the abstract concept and give the reader concrete details that create a sense of unease and morbidity. These lines together evoke an image of fall as a funeral procession that mourns the earth’s “corpse” as it transitions to the darker, more sinister winter.
Keats, on the other side, portrays autumn as a disease-induced death. Each of the three stanzas in the poem contributes to the positive, cheerful tone the speaker uses to describe autumn. Shelley’s opening verse depicts death. Keats, however, is rooting his opening verse in “To Autumn” in the idea that harvest. The speaker for example declares that fall is “conspiring (with [the sun] how it loads and blesses / With the fruit the vines which round the thatchs-eves race” (lines 3-4), and then references a filling “all fruit with good ripeness to its core” (6). These lines may be the antithesis to Shelley’s original description of dead leaves running like ghosts. Instead of referring to the flinging of fruit, he uses words such “ripeness” to refer instead the filling of “all fruit with ripeness at the core”. This emphasis is furthered by the speaker’s line “while thy hook/ Spares all its twined blooms” (lines 17-18). These images of abundance, growth, and autumn are a positive representation of the symbol of life.
Keats’ work, like Shelley’s does reference spring.
Shelley mourns the end of spring in a different way, however. Keats seems to be challenging Shelley in his poem “Where are your songs of spring?” … / Do not think of them, for thou hast also music” (lines 23-24). The speaker challenges the notion of comparing seasons and positing that autumn’s beginning can be seen through the lense of spring’s end. Fall “hast also thy music” implies that there is an inherent value to autumn in spite of how it is related to other seasons. This seems to be Keats’s attempt to both acknowledge and challenge the widely-held notion that spring is better than autumn. It’s a notion that Shelley has used as the foundation of his work.
Despite sharing some similarities, Shelley’s “To Autumn” and Keats’ “To Autumn” portray autumn in stark contrast. Shelley’s ode attempts to instill a sense morbidity and illness, highlighting the speaker’s view that autumn is the end of spring. Keats presents autumn through the images of abundance, harvest, and life in his ode. These two images together highlight the dual nature of autumn as a season of positive and negative changes within the natural world. Shelley’s pessimistic view that Autumn is the end of spring and Keats’ belief that fall brings life and harvest together effectively communicates the cyclical nature the natural world. Each new change is both a beginning or an ending.
